


The Trash Diaries

by panaceaa



Category: South Park
Genre: Kenny is concerned, Kyle really needs to get some sleep, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-12 21:19:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16003505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panaceaa/pseuds/panaceaa
Summary: During the day, Kyle is an investigative reporter tasked with the seemingly impossible assignment of unmasking the enigmatic vigilante Mysterion. At night, Kyle sits up at his window and documents a mysterious trash stranger who takes out his trash every night at exactly three in the morning.These events may or may not be related.





	The Trash Diaries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Townycod13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Townycod13/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Towny! You're wonderful and I love you<3

If Kyle had learned anything since first getting this job it was that being an investigative reporter was nothing like they made it seem like in the movies.

Sure he got his own fancy office, which he had worked his ass off for since he first started working here a few years ago. And sure he proved that he was able to handle the toughest cases that they had, an entitlement earned from sacrificing all facets of a personal life for many extra hours spent working. But what he hadn’t known was that the work wasn’t nearly as exciting as they made it out to be. Hours spent reading the same articles over and over, spending time going to every crime scene just to get his hands on a list of witnesses that he’d spend even more hours tracking down again only for them to refuse to talk to him. And sure, he had an interview with a witness today, but even then it’d be a longshot that they’d have any information that could help crack this case he’d been working on for almost a full month already. It seemed like everything was just a dead end.

Kyle gazes down at his small collection of reports and articles, brows furrowed in concentration. He copies a line from one article into his notebook, looks at it, and then immediately crosses it back out with a sigh.

“Good morning, Kyle.”

At the voice Kyle’s hand grips the pen a bit tighter as he reflexively stiffens.

Slowly he lifts his gaze to the door. “Morning, Leslie,” he grits, forcing a smile.

Leslie stood looking positively smug in the doorframe of his office, reminding him that he should get in the habit of keeping the damn door shut. And locking it. As well as possibly moving his bookshelf to barricade it.

“I’m surprised you’re actually staying around the office today,” his coworker says in that overtly saccharine way of hers that never failed to make his blood boil. She tilts her head like a wolf considering her prey. “No big leads you’re following?”

“I do have one, if you must know.” He makes sure to keep his tone civil, albeit still undisputedly icy. She was only trying to get a rise out of him, and so the less he reacted the more likely she was to leave him alone. “An eyewitness at the last scene,” he elaborates, “he should be here any minute.”

She hums thoughtfully, stepping a little further into his office to his immediate annoyance. “And so you’re getting desperate enough to trust the word of random pedestrians? You do realize how much people... _embellish_ , to the press. Don’t you?”

Kyle just glares.

She smiles.

“Leslie!” A sharp voice cuts into their little stare down, and for just a moment Kyle swears he sees Leslie’s smile widen. Then she’s turning away from him to a new figure standing in his doorframe. “Can I speak with you for a minute?” Wendy Testaburger asks bitingly, looking at her with a tight lipped smile, before turning on her heel and storming right back out the door.

Leslie watches her go, and then turns her attention back to Kyle with a new kind of glint in her eye. “Well it appears I’m needed elsewhere,” she trills. Still, despite her words, she gives one glance over her shoulder at the door before drifting forward towards Kyle. Eyeing her warily, Kyle watches as she moves behind his desk and peers over his shoulder at his workspace. He closes his notebook and shoots her another glare, but she just eyes him as if he’s a particularly amusing bug. “I’ll just go ahead and let you get back to work then,” she says and then finally makes her way back towards the door, almost walking into a blond man who was just making his way into the room. Ignoring him, she turns back to Kyle with a mocking little wave. “Later, sweetie.”

Once she’s gone, Kyle’s new visitor turns his sky blue gaze onto him with a slightly sympathetic look. “Friend of yours?”

“Uh yeah, something like that,” Kyle says, only sparing his guest a quick glance before attempting to tidy up his desk into some semblance of order. “Come on in,” he tells him, offering another flick of his gaze. “I’m assuming you’re Mr. McCormick.”

The blond gives him a lopsided grin that manages to all at once be mischievous and a bit captivating. Indescribably so. Kyle’s breath catches and he finds himself suddenly giving his guest his full attention. “Yep, but _you_ can call me Kenny,” the blond answers with an easy wink that is somehow natural and not at all corny, remaking the dull grayness of the usual office atmosphere in the fluidness of his actions and the brightness of his orange sweatshirt.

Kyle finds his lips quirking up into a smile on their own accord. “A privilege, I’m sure.”

“Mmmhm, so let’s just keep it between us.” He punctuates his words with another grin and then walks further into the office and gazes around at the interior. “This is a nice office you have here,” he offers. Then stopping to inspect the art Kyle has decorating his walls he adds, “I used to paint in college.”

“But now you don’t?”

“I lost...inspiration,” he admits, stopping to pay special attention to a painting of an orange sunrise. “Ended up getting caught up in life and couldn’t really find the time anymore. Decided to put my passion into something more useful.”

“Right,” Kyle says in response, a little stunned at the confession he’d just offered to a stranger. “Well, shall we get started then?”

Kenny nods, finally turning away from the paintings to cross the room and plop down in the chair in front of Kyle’s desk, He moves to get comfortable, slouching a bit, before gesturing openly with his hand. “Ask away.”

And so, Kyle opens up his notebook and grabs a pen.

“Tell me when you first saw Mysterion.”

***

Outside the window of his apartment, the moon lights up the empty streets everywhere with the exception of the alleyways and crevices where instead shadows stake their claim. Kyle can see one such back alley from the window he’s perched at, a small place with little more than two large dumpsters that serve as the place the residents of his neighboring apartment complex must go to dispose of their trash. It’s not exactly a glorified view, but Kyle had chosen practicality over luxury when choosing his living space, and luckily his best friend and first choice of roommate Stan hadn’t been picky. As it were, the place was within walking distance of Kyle’s office, and came fully furnished which was a big plus.

Though it was still a pretty shitty apartment. And had Kyle known he’d be spending most of his sleepless nights peering out at a bunch of dumpsters, maybe his decision wouldn’t have been quite so hasty.

Stress and Kyle had never really gotten along too well. In fact, it might be more correct to say that Kyle hated stress with a burning passion of a thousand suns and yet for some reason kept throwing himself into the most stressful situations he could get himself into. _‘Challenge yourself Kyle’_ his brain would say. _‘It will be fun Kyle’_ it would croon to him like a promise. Well as it turned out his brain was a giant dick and he kind of wanted to punch it...which in retrospect wouldn’t really turn out all that well for him. But the point was that he knew stress from his job would keep him up for sometimes days at a time and yet he kept taking on the toughest cases anyway.

And the Mysterion case might just have been his toughest case yet. An hour spent interviewing Kenny and he still wasn’t getting any closer to the truth.

There just had to be something he was missing.

He’s in the middle of going through the mental math for maybe the twentieth time when it happens.

In the back alley featured in his windows view, a lone figure in a dark hoodie pops out from around the corner while being partly obscured by darkness. In their hands they hold what looks like a bag of trash and Kyle watches as they then throw it into the dumpster. Which would be pretty ordinary except the clock on Kyle’s wall definitely read 3:00am on the nose and who the hell took out their trash at exactly three in the morning? The stranger then looks briefly over their shoulder, and just when Kyle supposed that things couldn’t possibly get weirder, instead of walking back towards the entrance of the apartment complex they then walk off into the night.

Well that was...suspicious.

He keeps his eyes on the now vacant back alley, until not ten minutes later the figure returns from the opposite direction from where they had vanished, as if they’d only walked around the block before then heading right back home towards the entrance of the complex.

 _Definitely_ suspicious.

Still, Kyle doesn’t think too much of it.

At least not until the next night when insomnia pulls at him once again and he finds himself at that same window witnessing that same scene, right at exactly 3:00am just as before.

The night after that there is no one. Kyle watches as the sun rises with the dawn and not once does the mysterious trash stranger appear.

But then the _next_ night he’s back at it again.

And thus starts the unexplainably odd pattern.

Kyle keeps a lookout every night and then recounts his tale to Stan every morning when his best friend finally wakes up.

“It’s just so _weird_ ,” he tells him, brow furrowed in confusion. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Stan just groans from over his bowl of cereal. “Dude I think you need a hobby. And some sleep.”

But Kyle knew his best friend just didn’t fully understand the oddity of the situation. Didn’t understand that this peculiar behavior was _exactly_ something a dark vigilante would do.

This could be the hidden clue that he was missing. Whatever this trash person was doing could prove key to figuring out just who Mysterion was. He just knew it

On one of these now routine nights, Stan rises from his bed and groans at seeing Kyle once again staring out the window like it was his job. Kyle spares him a quick glance over his shoulder at the sound and is instantly relieved. He was starting to give himself a headache and he really needed to talk to him.

“Oh good,” Kyle says, eyes once again locking on the window. “I’m glad you’re up dude. I-”

But Stan cuts him off before he can finish.

“Jesus christ, I just want to use the bathroom.”

“But Stan I think I’m onto something,” he pleads, horrified that his best friend would abandon him in such a crucial moment. He was trying to solve what might very well be the largest case of his career! His eye catches on movement and he straightens only to slump when he realizes it was just a raccoon. “I just need help organizing my thoughts.”

From the corner of his eye he watches as Stan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Then write them down or something. Make a stupid diary for all I care.”

Then he turns and stomps away to the bathroom, mumbling something about moving in with Butters.

Kyle considers his words.

A diary, huh?

Quickly standing from his spot at the window, he goes and grabs a spare notebook and a pen before seating himself back at his perch. Then, opening it up to the first page he scrawls three words in large letters.

 _‘The Trash Diary’_.

***

As Kyle quickly learns, weeks with only a few hours a sleep a night takes quite the toll on most motor functions. Also his ability to concentrate, or form coherent sentences…or do absolutely anything of the mental sort.

But he was determined to solve this case.

Somehow.

...That didn’t make much sense, did it?

He’s in the middle of contemplating the merits of turning all of his reports into paper airplanes and setting them loose on the office staff when a familiar orange sweatshirt wearing blond meanders into his office. Kenny greets him as usual, with that stupidly attractive lopsided smile accompanied by a sparkle in his blue gaze that made it feel a lot like the paper airplanes had actually been set loose on inside of Kyle’s stomach, but this time Kyle’s attention gets grabbed by something different in his appearance. His gaze narrows as he focuses in on the abnormality.

“You’ve got uh…” Kyle slurs intelligently, gesturing in the vague direction of his head.

Kenny blinks at him.

“What?”

“Are those…” After racking his brain for the correct terminology, Kyle eventually comes up with, “... _Hair-clips_?”

“Oh yeah,” Kenny shrugs casually. “I wear them sometimes.”

Kyle continues to stare at the little clips pinning back some of Kenny’s hair. They looked like they were in the design of some type of flower, daisies maybe? Daffodils? Or maybe just that vague company flower that executives would look at and shrug if asked with a simple, ‘I don’t know. It’s a fucking flower, what do want from me?’.

“It’s cute…” Kyle slurs.

Kenny just arches an eyebrow at him. It was cute. _He_ was cute. Someone should tell him. Or wait, maybe he just did.

Why was he here again?

“Um, earth to Kyle?” Kenny says, suddenly much closer than he was before, peering at Kyle’s face in clear concern. His eyes looked even more beautiful this close up, a hint of purple lingering around the corners of his irises. Purple. Wasn’t something else he was supposed to be doing related to purple?

Oh, _shit_ the interview.

Kyle straightens, blinking back his dazed state, and opens his lips to get back to business only for a yawn to come out instead. Okay, so maybe in hindsight it hadn’t been the _best_ idea to be up for seventy-two hours straight. But he’d had coffee, that should have counteracted it or something, right?

Kenny’s forehead creases a little further in worry, and Kyle wonders how he’d react if he reached over and smoothed it down with his thumb. Probably badly. Then again this was what, their sixth interview together? At about an hour a piece that’s pretty much the equivalent of six dinner-dates. “Hey,” Kenny says, cutting off his thoughts. “You feeling okay?”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, fighting back another yawn. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

He doesn’t miss the way that Kenny’s eyes slightly narrow at his words, the concern vanishing in place of something almost accusatory in nature. “Yeah…” he says slowly, while Kyle remains utterly baffled at his sudden change in demeanor. “Hey, you’re not like, keeping tabs on me, are you?”

Well, he certainly hadn’t been expecting that. Kenny thought he was what, watching him? Well yeah sure his whole...facial region was pretty nice to look at. And the rest of him wasn’t bad either, but was he accusing him of stalking him? He hadn’t been staring that blatantly...had he?

“Huh?” Kyle says, hoping to disguise his growing horror under a mask of pure confusion. “No, why would I do that?”

“No reason.” But Kenny’s expression doesn't change, and when he sits in the chair across from Kyle he leans forward so that his elbows rest on his knees in a distinct change from his normal slouched position. Then gazing unwaveringly into Kyle’s eyes he asks, “Well, have you gotten any closer to figuring out who Mysterion is?”

Blinking in surprise at the sudden question, Kyle is a little taken aback. Was Kenny maybe...disappointed in him for his lack of progress? Was he getting tired of always getting called for interviews? Kyle breaks away from his gaze and looks down at his desk with a frown. It wasn’t his fault that Kenny had a habit of being at about every crime scene involving Mysterion, and he could always say no if he didn’t want to be interviewed. That's pretty much what everyone else did. Though Kyle could understand his frustration, thanks to Kenny he had access to a lot more information, but there were still glaring inconsistencies and the whole thing quite frankly was just giving him a damn headache.

“No, I haven’t.” Kyle pouts.

“Really?” Kenny asks looking as if he didn’t quite believe him, and in response Kyle finally allows his own gaze to narrow.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Kenny doesn’t immediately answer and the two of them share a brief staredown before the blond finally leans back in his seat with a small smirk. “I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page,” he says with something almost dangerous swimming just below the surface.

There’s definitely something to that expression that Kyle should probably question, yet his brain’s still a bit foggy and he really can’t make sense of much of anything at the moment. So, he just sighs in defeat and directs the brunt of his frustrated gaze onto his notebook.

“I haven’t been able to get anywhere,” he mutters indignantly. “I think someone’s hiding reports from me.”

“Who would do that?”

Hearing the clear surprise and honest confusion in Kenny’s tone, Kyle looks up and arches an eyebrow. “Take one guess.”

“That girl who’s always in here giving you shit?” Kenny says after a moment and when Kyle nods his frown deepens. “Why would she do that?”

“She hates me,” Kyle admits. And when he just receives an even more confused look in response he sighs. “We...dated for a while. It didn’t end well.”

“Yikes.”

Kyle silently nods in agreement.

“Well, are you going to do anything about it?” Kenny’s tone is serious, as if implying that Kyle should most certainly do something about his little situation. And Kyle had thought about it before. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that Leslie had messed with one of his cases and she’d been giving off an awful lot of weird signals ever since he’d been put on this case. It would also help to explain the huge gaps of information and the reports he had sent for and never heard a word back on. Still, despite knowing that he should do something about her, he instead just pillows his arms on his desk and leans his head down on them. In that moment, that action alone was one of the best ideas he ever had.

“No...too tired...:”

And right before his eyes slip shut he swears the look Kenny gives him, although clearly exasperated, is also bordering on fond.

It was probably just his sleep-deprived brain.

***

Had someone told Kyle he’d be doing something so reckless three years ago, well...well he probably would have believed them pretty quickly. Kyle wasn’t stupid and he knew that fact well, but one of his greatest faults had always been his tendency to go rushing headfirst into tough and sometimes dangerous situations with a stiffened jaw and fists clenched tightly at his sides. Although that very tendency had also proven to be one of his greatest strengths at times.

He just had to pray that this happened to be one of those instances.

Giving himself one last satisfied look in the mirror he turns only to come face to face with Stan. For a moment his best friend, half ruffled from sleep and probably just looking to use the bathroom considering it was almost three in the morning, just stares at him. Then Stan every so carefully pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a long sigh.

“Kyle, what the fuck are you wearing?”

Kyle glances down at his jean shorts and sleeveless shirt, a heavy gold chain weighing down the light fabric. Gaze flicking back up to Stan, he barely repressed the urge to run a sheepish hand through his hair. To do so would be a small tragedy considering all the time he’d just spent slicking it back and combing it.

“This is my heritage, Stan.”

“Jesus Christ,” Stan groans. “Please tell me this isn’t a normal thing for you.”

“Of course not. I’m just using this as a disguise.”

Saying nothing, Stan just continues to stare at him.

“It’s only like the fourth time,” Kyle tries.

“Dude.”

“...Okay, maybe the fifth.”

“Dude!”

“This isn’t a joke, Stan!” Kyle snaps, jabbing his fine tooth comb in his direction. “This trash dude could be the key to finding out who Mysterion really is! What kind of investigative reporter would I be if I didn’t spy on him?”

“Kyle,” Stan says very slowly, as if he were talking to a small child. “I think you need some sleep.”

Kyle’s eyes narrow, but doesn’t respond. His best friend was supposed to support him in these things, and instead he was just being a dick. As Kyle brushes past him, he shoots Stan one last glare and mutters, “Cabbage,” just to further get his point across.

In response, Stan only gives one last groan and does nothing to stop Kyle who slips on a pair of shutter shades and exits out the front door.

Luckily, Kyle’s road to the dumpster is unhindered. He carries himself with all the pompous swagger of a true Jersey boy, and considering it’s three in the morning no one’s really around anyway.

He starts his stake-out in the shadows of his apartment, peering through his shutter shades at the dumpster across the street and waiting. To his relief, on this night his effort isn’t a waste as before long a familiar stranger melts out of the shadows with a bag of trash held firmly in his grasp. _Gotcha_. Kyle watches with supreme focus as the trash stranger looks straight in his direction for one long moment, Kyle’s heart picking up speed even though he knows he should be unrecognizable to anyone in his brilliant disguise. And then the stranger looks away. Turning and walking briskly in the direction of his normal route.

The moment that the guy vanishes around the corner, Kyle quickly makes his way over to the dumpster. He peers in over the side and checks for any abnormalities, anything that might give him a clue as to what this guy was up to.

“Do you normally root through dumpsters?”

Kyle whirls around at the sound of a voice, only to see a young girl with light brown hair and brown doe eyes. She looks at him a bit curiously, yet there’s also something strangely hard in her expression. Something distrustful that he can’t quite place the cause of.

Then again, he supposed she did just find him digging through a dumpster. It was probably best to play this cool, to try to squelch her suspicion.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just...looking for my friend.”

She raises an eyebrow. “In the dumpster?”

“...Yes. He’s uh...homeless?” Shit that sounded too unsure, he needed to sell this act if he was going to make it out of this. Had to convince her of his disguise, that he was just some guy from Jersey. “He had too much cabbage in his muff,” he voices with a shrug, “you know how it is.” She looked like she really didn’t. _Well_ , she wasn’t from Jersey, now was she? What would she know? “Well, looks like he’s not home,” he continues. “So, I’ll just be on my way then.”

He goes to make his flawless escape in order to follow after the stranger’s path before he completely lost his trail, now thoroughly behind schedule thanks to the girl’s interference. And although the girl gives him a somewhat annoyed look she doesn’t stop him to his immediate relief.

As he hurries around the corner onto a route he now knew well, Kyle mentally curses himself. He must have been careless to have gotten discovered so easily. He couldn’t let it happen again. But that shouldn't be a problem, all he had to do was-

“And just where do you think you’re going?”

Goddammit.

Kyle’s brought to a halt by a guy with light brown hair who seems to come out of nowhere and steps directly in his path. He wears a somewhat annoyed expression and his arms are crossed to accentuate his displeasure, yet his expression is not entirely unkind. It lets Kyle know at least that he’s there for a reason, and that reason doesn’t happen to involve murdering him.

Then again, maybe that’s just what he’s telling himself.

Kyle puffs out his chest and does his Jersey ancestors proud as he says, “I don’t got to tell nothin’ to the likes of you.”

“Oh really,” the guy says with a wicked smirk that Kyle swears is familiar though he can’t place from where. “So, tell me, do you make a habit of stalking people?”

His bravado falters. His Jersey ancestors look down on him in disappointment. “Do I _what_?”

The guy’s eyes narrow.

“You know exactly what I mean, you’ve been following that guy around the past couple of days.”

Welp and apparently he’d hadn’t been as sneaky as he’d thought he’d been. Oh well, at least no one knew his name or anything, hence the disguise. Though this guy clearly knew something about the trash stranger, at least enough to call him a guy, and so Kyle mentally adds to his list of knowledge that the trash stranger is a dude.

Mind flitting back to their little standoff, Kyle crosses his own arms and raises his chin indignantly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

And at his words the guy has the nerve to actually roll his eyes. “No,” he tells him. “I think you have a pretty good idea.”

Something in his tone makes Kyle bristle, and he clamps down on his anger the best he can. He didn’t exactly want a scuffle in the streets during the middle of the night, even if this guy was currently standing in the way of his mission. He needed him to _leave_ so he could go back to following his lead.

“ _No_ , I _don’t_ ,” he grits. “Now get out of my way, ya cabbage.”

Likely sensing his sudden hostility, the guy stiffens and drops his arms to his side as if preparing himself for whatever might happen next. However, before either of them can even say another word, a new voice cuts through the sudden tension.

“Kevin, just let him go.”

Out of the corner of his eye Kyle recognizes the girl that had stopped him at the dumpster with surprise. The two of them knew each other, then? Just why were they so interested in him?

“Karen,” the guy says with clear exasperation, although the moment his eyes land on her his eyes soften. “I thought I told you to stay inside.”

She shrugs. “He was rooting through our dumpster.”

At her words Kyle is suddenly being stared at by two sets of eyes and he can’t help but cringe under their weight. “...I told you I was looking for a friend,” he mutters.

Kevin just raises an eyebrow at him, but Karen tilts her head as if trying to figure him out and says, “You’re a bit weird, aren’t you?”

And it’s in that moment that Kyle feels himself flood with embarrassment, the reality of his situation sinking in. It serves as the trigger to get him to finally excuse himself and hurry on home, all the while thinking that maybe Stan had been right. That maybe getting some sleep might be in his best interest after all.

***

Outside of his office window, the sky is bathed in the warm orange of sunset. Most of the office staff had returned home, their shifts having ended a few hours ago, yet Kyle’s day was really only just getting started. Last night, after 3am had hit with no sign of the trash stranger, Kyle had gone to bed for a good and healthy four hours of sleep. Really, he was just living the persistent life of an overworked college student. A life he had lived himself before he graduated, and look where he was now: alive. And they said he couldn’t do it. Well ha! Take _that_ world.

Of course, it was shaping up to be another late night at the office, hence the current undeniable setting of the sun. Mysterion had stopped a bank robbery last night, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, Kenny had been there to witness it.

“You know,” Kyle says to him, the blond looking up to meet his eyes over the desk, “I’ve never really had to interview a single person so much. How is it that you’re almost always at places where Mysterion shows up?”

With a small frown, Kenny seems to think this over for a moment.

“I’ve never been the luckiest of people,” Kenny says eventually, looking a bit wary. “Bad things tend to happen to me a lot. Besides...I might be a bit of a fan.”

The blond’s smile then turns a bit sheepish and Kyle rolls his eyes. Yes, he’d heard all about Kenny’s slight obsession over the purple-clad vigilante. And sure the guy looked damn good in the uniform and had a sense of morals that was bordering on inspiring, but he wasn’t _that_ great. Kenny could do much better.

“Just try not to get yourself killed,” Kyle tells him, causing a mischievous smirk to immediately tug at Kenny’s lips.

“Oh, is that concern I detect in your voice?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Kenny’s smirk widens and he leans forward as if about to tell him something meant to be kept between them, but a very familiar voice cuts him off before he can manage it. A voice which causes Kyle to immediately cringe.

“Why hello Kyle,” says Leslie, looking between him and Kenny with a grin that makes his jaw clench in anger, “I don’t imagine you’re very busy.”

“What do you want, Leslie?” Kyle grits, eyes never leaving her form as she saunters further into his office, eyes widening into faux shock and innocence at his less than welcoming tone.

“Why so cold? I only wanted to check in to see how you were doing.”

Not at all in the mood to deal with her, Kyle is prepared to call her out on her bullshit when suddenly Wendy shoves her way into the room, looking furious. Leslie immediately turns to her in a way that suggested she was in no way surprised about the girl’s sudden appearance.

“Dammit Leslie,” Wendy all but growls, taking a threatening step towards the other girl. “Would you leave Kyle alone!?”

Both Kyle and Kenny slightly shrink back at the raw power in her tone, but Leslie doesn’t even flinch. In fact, her smirk only seems to widen as she crosses her arms and gives Wendy a once-over.

“Jealous, Testaburger?”

Wendy’s glare looks as if it could eat through solid rock and Kyle winces as she moves forward, expecting her to ram a fist into the other girl’s still smirking face. He really didn’t want to have to clean blood stains out of his carpet. However, he watches in pure shock as Wendy wordlessly grabs Leslie’s shirt and yanks her forward, slamming her lips against hers. It’s quick action, only lasting several seconds, and it’s only when they part that Wendy finally growls her answer.

“You fucking wish.”

Leslie blinks at her, looking shaken for perhaps the first time in her life. Then a slow smile spreads across her features and she turns to look at the stunned faces of Kyle and Kenny. “You two, _out_ ,” she demands.

The command causes Kyle to immediately shake off all remnants of shock as he glares at her indignantly. “What?! This is _my_ office! You can’t just-”

“ _Out_ ,” Wendy echos Leslie, somehow managing to be even more terrifying. She’d always been kind to him, but right now she was emitting a quiet fire that Kyle didn’t doubt had the power to burn down the world. All words die in his throat at the sight and before he knows it Kenny is grabbing his arm and pulling him to his feet.

“Come on,” the blond mutters to him. And still more than a little bit in shock, Kyle doesn’t fight him as together they slip past the two girls who were once again paying them no mind, and escape out the door.

It takes a few seconds for Kyle’s brain to fully catch up to him, and when it does he eyes his closed office door in a toss up between utter bafflement and anger.

“Please tell me that didn’t just happen,” Kyle says blankly.

“That didn’t just happen.”

He shoots Kenny a glare, in no mood for jokes. “Hilarious.” And when Kenny only gives him a wry smile in response, Kyle goes back to staring at the door with growing irritation. “They better not... _ugh_!” He stomps his foot, hands balling into fists. “I’m going back in there!” And with that announcement, he raises his fist to harshly bang on the door only to be stopped by Kenny placing a warm hand on his arm. Immediately freezing under his touch, Kyle looks to him in question.

“Well, you could do that, _or…_ ” Kenny drawls out with a distinct glimmer in his eye, “...we can take advantage of this little situation.” And with that he flashes a small key ring hanging from his index finger. Kyle’s eyes go wide at the sight, immediately recognizing it for what it was and allowing his brain to fill in the rest.

“Is that…?”

“The key to Leslie’s office? That it is.”

“How did you…?”

Kenny shrugs. “She was distracted,” is all he says, as if that was answer enough. “Now how about we go see if she’s really hiding information?” The grin on his face is both dark and mischievous and seeing it causes something to stir in Kyle’s gut, yet he still shakes his head.

“ _We_? I appreciate the offer but-”

“Nuh-uh. Nope,” Kenny cuts him off, crossing his arms defiantly. “You want the key then you’re gonna have to bring me along.”

Kyle blinks at him.

“Why?”

“Because I’m bored,” he says with another easy shrug. Then, leaning in as if about to tell a secret, Kenny winks and adds, “And like I said before, I’m a big fan of Mysterion.”

At that, Kyle sighs. “Okay fine,” he relents, stomach clenching with a strange bitter feeling. Ignoring it, he jabs a finger in Kenny’s direction. “But if we find anything in there you better keep quiet about it.”

Kenny gestures to his mouth with a locking motion and then acts as if throwing away the key.

Shaking his head Kyle mutters, “Just follow me,” and then takes a step in the direction of Leslie’s office. Of course, the moment he does Kenny grabs his arm and practically pulls him under the desk of the nearest cubicle. Taken aback, Kyle shoots him a glare at the indignity of being manhandled and hisses, “What are you-”

His words are cut off by sparkling blue eyes and a finger shoved to Kenny’s lips in a silencing motion. “Shh, you don’t want anyone to see us going into her office, right?”

But Kyle doesn’t respond, throat suddenly going dry at the sudden realization of their situation. They’re so close. Kenny’s face sitting only a few inches from his own, and his body hovering close enough that he can feel the warmth radiating off of him. The spot where Kenny still has a grip on his forearm tingles pleasantly, and Kyle barely represses a shiver, swallowing thickly as his gaze automatically drifts down to Kenny’s lips.

“Alright, so what door is it?” The blond is saying, but Kyle is completely lost. A part of him hearing the words but being unable to answer them in the wake of his mental arithmetic contemplating the pros and cons of leaning forward and capturing his lips with his own. “...Kyle?”

The sound of his name abruptly snaps him out of his dazed state, and Kyle feels his face grow warm as he attempts looking anywhere but at Kenny. “Right, sorry,” he mutters, before gesturing to a door on the other side of the office. “It’s that one over there. It says Leslie on the plaque.”

Kenny gives him a strange look with just the slightest glint of knowing, but to Kyle’s relief he doesn’t comment. “Okay cool,” he says instead, finally releasing his hold on Kyle’s arm to his immediate disappointment. “Just follow my lead.”

And then he’s off.

To his credit, Kyle tries his best to keep up and Kenny never seems exasperated as he waits for him to clumsily follow after him. But it wasn’t even really that Kyle was particularly bad at sneaking, it was just that Kenny was...a little too good at it. The blond gracefully slipping from cubicle to cubicle with a practiced ease that’s both attractive and a bit worrying.

Just how was he so good at this?

Kyle’s in the middle of contemplating that very question, while hiding behind a cubicle waiting for Kenny’s signal saying that it’s safe to cross to the next one, when a voice startles him from his thoughts.

“Kyle?”

Kyle stiffens, and slowly looks up from his crouched position behind Clyde’s desk to peer into the face of Clyde himself. Without standing, Kyle forces a smile, trying to be calm about this. “Oh, hey Clyde.”

Clyde blinks at him, taking a slow bite of the hot pocket held in his hands as he stares at him. “What are you doing?” He asks, just as Kyle begins to sweat under his gaze .

“Uh…just um,” Kyle fumbles for an excuse, “Looking for my phone?” He laughs nervously. “I must have dropped it.” And to his relief Clyde seems to buy it, giving him an understanding nod. Kyle watches as he then turns back to his desk, thinking that was the end of it, when Clyde turns back around and holds out a familiar object to him.

“Oh, well here you go.”

Kyle stares at it for a minute in disbelief.

“Clyde, why the hell do you have my phone?!”

Clyde blinks. “I found it.”

“But...I... _ugh_!” Kyle gives up on logic, grasping at none since he’d never lost his phone in his life and this whole situation was ridiculous. Just forget it,” he says as he snatches the device from Clyde’s grasp and shoves it in his pocket. He then turns back to Kenny who thankfully was still waiting at the cubicle across from him, looking as if he was muffling giggles with his hand.

“Why are you still hunched over like that?” Clyde asks him.

“Because I have a fucking back problem!” He snaps in annoyance, and then mutters, “Just leave me alone,” as he finally follows after Kenny.

“Alright,” he hears Clyde say from behind him as he darts to the next cubicle. “If you say so.”

Kenny gives him an amused look once he joins him again, and Kyle glowers. “Don’t you dare say anything,” he warns to which Kenny snickers.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

And then with that, he turns and leads him across the last few cubicles on the way to their destination. When they finally reach Leslie’s door, Kenny stays crouched as he unlocks it, before quickly gesturing Kyle through and shutting the door behind him.

Heart still beating erratically, Kyle looks at the relaxed looking blond beside him.“You’re uh, kinda good at that,” he tells him, a little breathless.

Kenny winks. “I’m good at a lot of things, darlin’.”

Ignoring the sudden flutter in his gut Kyle snorts and turns away, heading towards the laptop sitting on the desk. “I’ll get into her computer, you go through her files and try to keep an eye on the door,” he instructs and receives an arch of an eyebrow from Kenny.

“Isn’t it password protected?”

Settling down in the chair, Kyle gives him a smirk. “You’re not the only one with a few hidden talents.”

Kenny meets his eyes and matches his grin, causing Kyle’s stomach to flip. Quickly looking away, Kyle gets to typing away on Leslie’s laptop, using all he knew of hacking to crack the simple password within minutes. Once in, he starts a search for ‘Mysterion’ and goes to her recent assignments as the search function does its job in the background. In his peripheral vision he can see Kenny opening and closing different drawers and sifting through any files that he finds.

Catching him slowly and carefully eyeing one report, Kyle asks him, “You find anything?”

“Nope, sorry dude,” Kenny answers immediately, closing the folder and pushing it to the side.

With a sigh, Kyle goes back to Leslie’s assignment page and finishes skimming through it with a curse. “Shit, I knew it. Leslie wasn’t even assigned to this case,” he mutters at Kenny’s questioning look. It was something he had suspected, yet it also served to clarify that Leslie would have nothing to gain besides his own misery if she happened to be messing with his case. Not that it was impossible for that to be her exact motivations, but it made things just slightly more improbable. That improbability being even further confirmed a moment later when the search of her computer comes up with zero results for ‘Mystertion’.

Kyle stares at it for a moment, a sick feeling emerging at the sight. And then without a word he slowly closes the laptop, slumping back in the computer chair in defeat. “What if they’re not keeping anything from me?” He says quietly, mostly to himself. “What if I’m just a horrible investigator?”

From beside him he swears he sees Kenny wince, but then he’s back to giving him that small gentle smile again. “Hey, come on, don’t talk like that.”

“You know it’s true,” Kyle pouts, voice holding several shades of bitterness. “Maybe my parents were right, giving speeches is all I’m really good at. I would’ve done better as a lawyer.”

For a moment Kenny says nothing. The blond looking contemplative while Kyle stared down at the closed laptop with unseeing eyes. Then slowly he says, “So um, what would you do if you figured out Mysterion’s identity?”

Kyle’s brow scrunches in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Well before you had told me you were determined to publish Mysterion’s identity before Leslie could, but if she’s not really even looking then...do you still have to unmask him?” He pauses. “I mean, I’d like to find out who he is too, but should that really be released to the public?”

Kyle just continues to watch him for several moments, seriously considering his words.

“...No,” he answers eventually. “It probably shouldn’t. And if I’m really the only one on this case, then that kind of puts his life in my hands, doesn’t it?” He laughs bitterly, throwing his head back against the chair. “I should have never taken this assignment.”

Kenny bites his lip and when he speaks his voice is so quiet Kyle barely hears him. “Or maybe you were the best person to.”

“What do you mean?”

His lips quirk up into a small smile. “Well I’m just saying, but if I were Mysterion I’d be pretty thankful that my case was taken by someone who cares.”

There’s something distinctively raw and honest in his tone that paired with the brightness of Kenny’s eyes makes Kyle’s heart stutter. Warmth crawling up his neck, Kyle turns away to stare back down at the desk.

“Or at least was stupid enough to never figure things out,” he mutters.

And with that, they fall into silence.

“Hey Kyle,” Kenny suddenly says. “I think I found something.”

At his words, Kyle perks up. “What is it?” He asks, glancing at the folder resting under Kenny’s hands, but the blond doesn’t pass it over to him. Instead, he gives him a warm smile.

“I’ll let you see on one condition.”

Kyle raises an eyebrow and waits.

“Let me take you out to dinner,” Kenny finishes to his immediate surprise. But despite the sudden quickening of his pulse, Kyle allows his lips to form into a slow smirk.

“Are you asking me out, Mr. McCormick?”

Kenny’s smile widens. “I knew that brain of yours would be able to figure it out,” he quips with a wink. “So, what do you say?”

At first Kyle can’t quite find the words to respond. He stares at Kenny. At the boy with the sparkling blue eyes and the lopsided smile that never failed to make his heart race. At the guy who had an appreciation for art, and a captivating grace, and had been a bright spot in his life these past few weeks. There was something that had been growing between them, Kyle knew this. Yet, with a sad little smile, he really has no choice but to decline.

“I don’t make a habit of mixing work and my personal life,” he tells Kenny, regret slipping into his tone. “Tends to end badly.” And Kenny doesn’t have to ask what he means. They were standing in her damn office after all, their very circumstance a result of the situation Kyle had gotten himself into a few years ago. He and Leslie had been good, at least for a while, the girl being an exciting and intriguing puzzle that he always believed he could figure out.

He’d been young and stupid back then. And even if Kenny was different, until this case was solved he couldn’t let himself take that chance of making the same mistake again.

The understanding in Kenny’s gaze is a welcome relief. “Hmm...well how about when we’re not working together?” The blond offers, as if reading his thoughts, “Like once you figure out the identity of the great vigilante?”

Still, Kyle can’t help but raise an eyebrow. “You seem confident that that’s going to be the case.”

“Well sure, you’re smart.” He gives an easy shrug, smile never leaving his face. Then he pauses, fingers dancing on the folder beneath his hands before he picks it up and offers it to Kyle. “And you’ve got everything you need right here,” he adds, tone soft.

Meeting his eyes, Kyle slowly reaches up and takes the folder from his hands. He places the thing on his own desk before opening it. He only has to skim through several articles on Mysterion, several reports he had sent for and never heard a word back on, before everything clicks and he lets out a curse.

“ _Shit_. She _was_ hiding things from me.”

He’s still staring down at the contents of the folder in a mix of anger and shock when Kenny speaks up from beside him. “Congrats Kyle,” he says gently, “turns out you were just being sabotaged all along. And here you were doubting yourself.”

They lock gazes and, for the first time in a long time, Kyle truly smiles.

***

Although the hidden reports help to fill in details, there still simply didn’t seem to be enough to go on.

Kyle had spent the better part of two days collecting all information that he could from the file, and yet here he sat feeling as if he still wasn’t really making any progress. There were still things that seemed to be missing, not to mention subtle inconsistencies between what Kenny had told him and what was written in the reports. It was infuriating. Still, he’d come this far and he wasn’t about to give up anytime soon.

He’s busy trying to work details into yet another timeline when there’s a knock on his apartment door. At first he jumps at the sound, certainly not having expected company especially since Stan was still at work so it probably wasn’t for him, but at the sound of another impatient knock he quickly goes to answer it.

Throwing open the door, Kyle’s left blinking in surprise.

“Hey loser,” Ike says in way of greeting, shoving his way past him and into his apartment.

“Ike? What are you doing here?”

“Relax, I’m not staying long.” He immediately makes his way to the kitchen and Kyle follows after him and watches as he roots through a few of the cabinets and pulls out a bag of chips. “There’s a convention downtown I’m going to,” he finally continues, opening the bag and shoving a handful into his mouth, “but it doesn’t start until later,” he finishes with his mouth full.

“Oh.” Kyle blinks. “Well, where are you going to stay?”

“A cardboard box on the street.”

“ _Ike_.”

His brother rolls his eyes. “I’m meeting friends there, okay? We got a hotel.”

“...Have you met them before?” Kyle asks hesitantly, knowing Ike would give him shit but unable to stop from worrying about his little brother.

“Don’t worry, I already sent them my social security number and my birth certificate.” Ike deadpans as he throws back another handful of chips. “There’s no way they’ll murder me now.”

“You’re such a little shit.”

“Thanks,” he says like the little asshole he is. Then he seriously looks at Kyle for the first time since he got there as he chews. “So, what are you up to? You look like shit.”

Kyle sighs, running a hand through his hair that was already sticking up from the repeated action. Glancing over at the kitchen table turned workstation he says, “Trying to figure out the identity of this big-shot vigilante. I have everything I could possibly have at this point, classified reports and eyewitness accounts. But something isn’t adding up and it’s driving me insane.”

At his words Ike immediately smirks, leaning against the kitchen counter and placing the bag down to cross his arms. “You need my help, don’t you?”

And Kyle realizes in that moment that yeah, maybe he did need his brother’s help. Ike was an ass, but he was also nothing short of a genius. Besides, a fresh set of eyes on everything certainly couldn’t hurt.

Of course, since Kyle knew his brother, his gaze immediately narrows in suspicion. “What’s it going to cost, my first born kid or something?”

“Nah, I wouldn’t want that ugly little asshole. I’m just bored, plus,” his smirk widens, “bragging rights.”

It was believable enough, and so Kyle finds himself relenting. “Alright fine,” he says, gesturing to the mess of papers strewn across the table. “This is what I have.”

And so, with that, Ike settles down in a kitchen chair and begins pouring over everything. Saying almost nothing as his gaze flew over reports faster than Kyle could even manage, staring at everything with a certain apathetic detachment, yet clearly concentrated on his task. Eventually, Ike gets to the journal that had been half buried under reports and opens it up to the first page, gaze flicking up to Kyle’s with an arched brow as Kyle winces. “The Trash Diary? Really?” Yet despite his words he looks back down at it and flips to the next page.

“Yeah I thought I might be onto something but I’m starting to think it actually doesn’t have anything to do with it. So-”

“Are you sure about that?” Ike cuts him off, flipping to get another page.

For a moment Kyle can only stare.

“...What?”

Ike glances up and rolls his eyes as if it was obvious. “Here, look at this.” He pushes the journal towards Kyle and points to the date on one of the pages, and then to the same on the next one. Kyle looks at it, but doesn’t really know what he’s getting at. At least until Ike also pushes forward one of the timelines Kyle had been working on and points to two sequential dates. And with that, the pieces slowly begin to click into place. “This guy takes his trash out every night except on nights where there were Mysterion sightings. They perfectly match up.”

Kyle looks up at his brother, eyes wide. And Ike leans back, looking entirely smug as he finishes his reveal.

“Whoever that guy is, that’s your dumb vigilante.”

***

Outside the air is filled with a cool and gentle breeze, the moon above lighting up the contours of the back alley he was currently standing in although the contours of shadow still lingered in every nook and cranny. He was unarmed of course, wearing only a thick coat that helped against the cold of the late November night, or well...morning if being technical, the time on his phone reading 2:58am as he checked it once again. Still, despite the danger he was probably putting himself in, he wasn’t afraid. Determination seeped well into his bones and muffled all anxiety over the situation like a warm blanket.

Tonight was the night he’d finally discover who Mysterion really was.

“So I guess it’s all over, huh?” Suddenly speaks a familiar voice, and Kyle turns in surprise at the sight of a very familiar figure melting out of the surrounding shadows. He was missing his normal orange hoodie and was dressed in the clothing of the trash stranger, but there was no denying exactly who this was and Kyle’s eyes widen at the realization. “I figured it was only a matter of time before you figured out it was me,” Kenny continues with a shrug. “Though honestly I was expecting you to confront me at the office. Then again, I guess this is a bit more dramatic.”

“Wait, _Kenny_?!” Kyle blurts, completely stunned. Kenny, his frequent interviewee and the object of quite a few fantasies in the past few weeks was the trash stranger? Which also meant…he was _Mysterion_? This bright and cheerful spark of light was the dark and mysterious vigilante?

None of this made sense. ...Or maybe it did, which was somehow the strangest part. The blond had been at every crime scene involving Mysterion, not to mention the easy grace and ability for subterfuge that he had displayed in the time that he’d known him. Then there was also the fact that it would make sense that Mysterion would want to know everything that the press knew about his case, keeping tabs on how much people really knew.

But still, _Kenny_?

As Kyle’s brain ran circles around itself, Kenny stood staring at him as if he’d grown a second head. “I- wait, what?” Kenny starts, tone lined with bafflement. “You didn’t already know it was me?”

Kyle blinks.

“Uh, no?”

“But it was you watching me, wasn’t it?” Kenny continues, brow furrowing further in his confusion. “You’d suspected it was me from our interviews and have been keeping an eye on me...right?”

“Um I mean, no?” Kyle’s lips tilt into a slightly sheepish smile as his mind finally connects the dots and realizes that he’d perhaps been a little too captivated with the sunny blond to see what was staring him right in the face. “I’ve just been watching you because it was suspicious as hell that you would take your trash out at three in the morning all the time.”

It was now Kenny’s turn to stare. “Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why would that be suspicious?” Kenny asks looking honestly confused, as if _Kyle_ was the crazy one.

“Because no one does that!”

Kenny shrugs. “Exactly. My neighbors always try to talk to me and it’s annoying, so I go out when no one’s around.”

“...Seriously?” Kyle says after a moment, slowly grasping the implications of what he was saying and wanting to die a little. “So you taking out the trash at this time has nothing to do with you being Mysterion?”

“Nope.”

“And this was all just a big coincidence?”

“Yep.”

“...I hate everything.”

As Kyle pouts and laments his entire life, Kenny walks up to him and places a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Hey, but it all worked out in the end right?” He asks with his signature lopsided grin. “You got my identity, and now we can finally go on that date.”

Kyle meets his gaze, and registers just how close they were to each other. The ring of purple around Kenny’s irises as beautiful as ever under the moonlight, and the warmth of his hand on his arm managing to seep through the thick fabric of his coat. And here, in the darkness with all secrets finally out in the open Kyle allows his lips to curl into a small smirk a moment before he grabs the front of Kenny’s shirt and yanks him forward into a kiss.

The blond makes a sound of surprise, but returns the kiss almost immediately, melting into it as his hands slide to wrap around Kyle’s waist to tug him closer. Kyle can’t help but smile against his lips, releasing his hold on his shirt and sliding one hand up to cup his jaw. His lips are warm in stark contrast to the cold of the night, soft and just the slightest bit chapped. Heart pounding, Kyle finds that the feeling is better than he had ever imagined.

It’s perfect.

“Alright Trashsterion,” Kyle purrs, pulling back to look at Kenny’s dazed expression, “I’m all yours.”


End file.
